A Look Inside This Little-Known $3-Billion Industry管窥鲜为人知的30亿美元产业

希里什·贾约 译/王一宇

How Ben Hirvi， an Australian-born lead1 seller， built a business through pay-per-call lead generation？ 在澳大利亞出生的本·希尔维是一名潜在顾客提供者，他如何通过来电付费式潜在顾客生成建立了自己的事业？

If you ask your neighbor whether they’ve ever paid money to a lead generation business， you’ll be met with a blank look. So how exactly does a hidden industry reportedly worth $3 billion a year—and growing at break-neck speed—earn its money？

To answer that， let’s consider the case of a fictional character， Kelly， who lives in Pearland Texas， a pleasant residential area outside Houston. When Kelly needs to have the trees trimmed along her front fence， she does what most homeowners do： she turns to Google. She’ll search for something like “tree services near me” or “tree trimming Pearland TX”， and she’ll call one or two of the businesses listed in the search results. One of the websites she lands on and calls is owned by Ben Hirvi， an Australian-born lead-seller， living in Asia.

However， Hirvi does not own a tree service business in Houston， and says he’s never touched a chainsaw in his life： “Absolutely not. I could probably tell you which end to hold， but that’s about it！” Instead， he does a brisk trade selling phone calls—like Kelly’s—to business owners who need customers.

In this instance， Kelly’s phone call would have been routed directly to a tree service business operating in the Pearland area， with whom Hirvi had established an agreement to sell phone calls.

Hirvi says business is booming. “I built my first site back in 2013—a pest control site in Australia—and since then， each year has been bigger than the last. In my first year， if I had 20 or 30 calls a day， that would have been big news. Now， I’m disappointed if I don’t crack 1，000 calls a day.”

When a call comes in from one of his hundreds of sites， Hirvi’s phone system routes it to his highest paying client. “Our software calculates a bunch of things within the first ring， including which client has open availability on their calendars—so that the caller is more likely to book—but also and most importantly， which client has offered to pay me the most for those calls！”

Hirvi is tight-lipped on exactly how much he earns from each call， and says it’s impossible to give an answer. “First， not all calls are billable， some are un-answered， some are marketing calls， some are previous customers， and so on. As for the billable calls， each industry is different. If you consider tree services， that customer is probably not going to be a repeat customer， so the scope for me to charge my client is firmly under $100 per call， maybe even under $50. But if you take something like accounting or bookkeeping， you can imagine that the lifetime value of a caller is very high—they might spend thousands of dollars a year for many years， which opens the door to me charging my clients a solid 4-figure fee for each person I send to them”.

While Hirvi has taken the path of selling his calls directly to clients， that’s not the only option for would-be lead sellers.

Several pay-per-call advertising networks exist， promising to pay lead-sellers a fixed fee for every qualifying call. These networks， explains Hirvi， do the thankless work of finding and managing buyers for the calls， though not without charging a hefty premium. “Often， a new lead seller discovers that the client-side of the business is the most difficult and time-consuming—and they’re absolutely right—so they choose to take a 50–70 per cent haircut2 on revenue and send all their calls to a network， which then handles the client-side and gives them a single payment each month”， says Hirvi.

Even with hundreds of businesses and lead sellers competing for the top position on Google， the pay-off can be handsome， says Hirvi. “If you look at something like ‘bed bug exterminator NYC’， there are about 600 to 800 searches per month， and more in winter”.

“Those guys are going to end up paying a couple of thousand dollars each to fix their bed bug problem， so with just one website， you’re in front of over a million dollars per month of customer spending; so even if you have your fees on the very low end and you’re charging your clients 10 per cent of what they earn， you have a very lucrative website.”

The legalities of operating websites like his are complex and vary by state and country， but Hirvi says that in addition to having a lawyer review all sites before they receive a single call， there is one simple principle that has kept him out of trouble. “The first rule of lead selling is that you don’t sell calls to dodgy businesses. If customers have a good experience， you’ll never have a problem.”

After eight years of running his own portfolio， Hirvi has begun offering income-producing lead generation sites as a ‘done for you service’ through his agency Lead Commanders.

“It’s a good deal for me and it’s attractive for my clients， for somewhere around $30，000–40，000， they end up with an income-producing site， sometimes paying them well into 5-figures a month，” says Hirvi， adding “and it’s a good alternative revenue stream for me because we charge a percentage of revenue to manage the sites long term.”

While it’s clear that business owners can benefit by buying calls from lead sellers， it’s not clear what impact the increase in online competition will have on those businesses who choose not to buy from lead sellers， and instead， to drive their own calls. Instead of competing with only the other service providers in their local area， small businesses are now increasingly competing with potentially unlimited numbers of lead sellers， making the task of driving customers to their business more competitive than it might otherwise have been.

若你问邻居是否在潜在顾客生成产业上花过钱，他可能一脸茫然地看着你。这个据称年净值30亿美元并在飞速发展的隐秘产业，到底如何盈利？

为回答这一问题，我们设定一个虚构人物：凯莉，生活在得克萨斯州休斯敦市外舒适的居住区皮尔兰。当凯莉需要找人修剪门前围栏边的树时，同大多数房主一样，她点开谷歌，搜索“我附近的树枝修剪服务”或“得州皮尔兰树枝修剪”之类，然后拨打搜索结果中的几则商家电话。在她登录并去电的网站中，有一家属于本·希尔维，他是在澳大利亚出生但在亚洲居住的潜在顾客提供者。

然而，希尔维没在休斯敦开公司做树枝修剪服务。一生中从未触碰过链锯的他说：“我绝对不懂这个，我或许能告诉你手应该握链锯哪一端，但仅此而已！”不过，他向需要消费者的生意人销售凯莉这类顾客的来电，生意很火爆。

在这个例子中，希尔维和皮尔兰地区的树枝修剪服务商已达成来电销售协议，凯莉的电话会被直接转接过去。

希尔维说他的生意蒸蒸日上：“2013年，我在澳大利亚建立了自己的第一个网站——害虫防治网，自那以来，每年的生意越来越好。第一年，如果每天能有二三十通电话，我就很惊喜了。现在，如果一天接不到1000通，我会很失望。”

当他的数百个网站中出现一通电话时，希尔维的通话系统会将其转接到出价最高的客户。“第一声铃响的时间内，我们的软件进行多重计算，包括哪位客户能安排出时间，这样来电顾客预订可能性更高;而且最重要的，哪位客户为我转接电话支付的佣金最高！”

对于每一通电话的确切收入，希尔维三缄其口，表示无法给出答案。“首先，不是所有电话都有收入，未接通电话、推销电话、来自过往消费者的电话等不会带来收入;至于能帶来收入的通话，各个行业金额不同。比如树枝修剪服务，消费者不太可能成为企业客户的回头客，所以我向企业客户收取的费用肯定不到100美元，甚至可能会低于50美元。但如果是会计或记账业务，那可想而知，每一位来电顾客的终身价值很高，因为他们可能在多年里年度消费数千美元。因此，每转接一个这样的消费者，我会收取商家四位数的费用。”

虽然希尔维选择直接将电话转卖给企业客户，但这不是提供潜在顾客的唯一方式。

实际上有数个来电付费式广告网站承诺为潜在顾客提供者每通符合条件的通话支付固定费用。希尔维解释道，这些网站寻找、管理来电买家，吃力不讨好，不过会收取高额附加费。他说：“通常，新潜在顾客提供者发现这个行业的企业客户端最耗时耗力（这样的想法确实正确），因此，他们宁可少收入50%—70%，将所有来电卖给网站。网站负责企业客户端工作，并每月给潜在顾客提供者一笔费用。”

希尔维说，尽管有数百家企业和潜在顾客提供者竞争谷歌搜索前排位置，这一行业的收入仍很可观。“类似‘纽约市除床虱’的搜索每月大概有600至800次，冬季更多。”

“每位顾客最终将支付几千美元解决床虱问题。所以，仅一家网站就可带来每月超过100万美元的销售额;即便你的佣金很低，10%的抽成也是非常丰厚的网站收入。”

类似希尔维网站的运营是否合法很复杂，因州、因国而异。但希尔维认为，除了在开始接电话前由律师审核所有网站之外，有一个避免麻烦的简单原则：“潜在顾客生成的首要原则是，不卖来电给问题企业。如果顾客消费体验好，永远不会有问题。”

经营个人系列业务8年后，希尔维创办了代理机构“潜在顾客指挥官”，开展“帮建服务”，替客户创建可创收的潜在顾客生成网站。

“对我来说这是门好生意，对我的客户也很有吸引力。花上三四万美元，他们就能入驻可创收的网站，有时网站每月为他们带来可观的五位数收入。”希尔维补充道，“对我来说，这是另一种很好的收入来源，因为我们对客户的收入收取提成以长期运营网站。”

显然，企业可通过从潜在顾客提供者处购买来电获益，但对于自行开拓潜在顾客而非购买来电的企业来说，线上竞争加剧对他们的影响不甚明了。相比于仅和当地的其他服务商竞争，小企业如今越来越需要与有可能不断增加的潜在顾客提供者竞争，招揽顾客变得更加困难。

（译者为“《英语世界》杯”翻译大赛获奖者）